


Congrats! You get to start over!

by PossiblyHuman



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Uhhhhhhhh, i dont know what else its shippy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-25 02:25:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14967119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PossiblyHuman/pseuds/PossiblyHuman
Summary: Spades Slick leaves without the Felt. He crash lands on a planet like an idiot. He never makes it to [S] Collide, and he pulls out all of the Felt's pins again.





	Congrats! You get to start over!

You wake up wrapped around him again, face shoved under his chin, gripping him like he might disappear. Which is fair, everyone else you’ve woken up like this with has done just that over the years. You get clingy fast when you remember, even if it’s deep in the back of your brain. It’s a pitiful, weak ass attempt to keep the one good thing you’ve got in your life.

You grip him tighter and fall back asleep. His arms wrap much more gently around you, breathing deeply and steadily like clockwork. Most of what he does _is_ like clocks anyway, and you’d hate it- if you gave a sliver of a fuck anymore.

Before long, he’s gently pushing you back with a sigh. You don’t let him.

“Slick, I have to get up.” He says softly. “Before one of them mess up somethin’.”

“No, y’don’t. Ain’t nobody but us here. Let them wreck some shit.”

He laughs quietly, but you can hear he won’t be convinced. He kisses you gently, and it’s not _that_ bad. Manageable even. He pulls back again, and you let him this time. “Still.”

He’s always s _oft_ with you. It could just be literal, his skin green and plush, something you were definitely not used to, past lovers all being hard and solid carapaces like you. It could be how long it takes him to get untangled from you, and the kiss he places on your forehead before he leaves to go run your stupid new gang. But, whatever it is, Crowbar’s soft on you, and sweet on you, no matter what you do.

You don’t go back to sleep. You try, but you toss and turn in your empty bed, then shuffle your way to the kitchen. The coffee machine whirls to life, and you wonder for the thousandth time how the _fuck_ Crowbar knows when you’re going to get up. He must be bribing Fin, you swear to god.

You take your cup and stare out at this dumb planet you ended up on.

\--

You had tried to rush out on your own, Felt screaming after you, and your stupid robotic ass-rocket kicked it halfway there. You’re lucky it didn’t take anything else out, but a flaming ass was a thing of the past for you. You landed on this sorry place, empty of anything with a higher IQ than the frogs that lived here. After a month or so with those slimy creatures, you still weren’t sure if you were dead and this was one of the bubbles you heard about, but you couldn’t take the silence anymore. You put all the pins back into Die’s doll, and pulled the Seven out. You waved the staff at him, saying it proved you were the boss. That had worked with the other Felt. He just sighed and said lucky him.

It took some time to get Crowbar on your side, but when he realized it was just you and him, he got all buddy-buddy. He definitely missed his gang, and knew you were the only one who could bring them back. He asked you about it for weeks, sucked up to you that whole time, until you finally caved and pulled all but the 8. Under the condition that Crowbar’d support you and let you be the boss. He clicked his tongue, but said okay when you waved the staff in his face.

There was the Felt. They didn’t look all that pleased to see you. They looked marginally less so when Crowbar stepped out behind you and started barking orders at them, some plans for a new manor. You vetoed any clock construction and earned yourself an argument with Trace about it. It lasted a good hour, and you were seconds from just stabbing the man. He really liked those clocks. Crowbar eventually stepped in and bargained a few clocks out of you, and Trace fucked off, satisfied.

“I hope you know what you’re doin’, for their sake.” You snapped, reeling on Seven as soon as Three was gone. “I don’t want no fuckin’ clocks all ticking and shit all over the place. They better keep them th’ hell away from me, or it’ll be their heads.”

“’Course, Slick.” Crowbar said smoothly looking frustratingly not intimidated at all.

“And don’ go against me in front’a them again.” You finished, wanting to stick him with something pointy at his facial reaction. The barest hint of a raising eyebrow. “They won’t respect my authority.”

“They’re more used to taking orders from me. If they see me reacting and taking initiative with your orders, they’ll adjust to you being in charge quicker.” Crowbar explained, eyebrow raising higher, challengingly. Dammit if he wasn’t right. He adopted that strategy and it worked. When you said something that would set one of them off, he adjusted the wording and took over.

It reminded you so much of Droog, but at the same time not at all. Droog just dead-stared when you were doing something he didn’t like, and silently fix it, while Crowbar put all his brimming sass into that eyebrow and would tear you to verbal pieces for the sake of fixing your fuck up. It worked about the same. Damn second in commands, always being smart and logical, no matter how different they were. You spent the rest of the day kicking frogs around and avoiding Mr. Seven.

The Felt were curious about you, and much less intimidated by this point. They were still jumpy, and somewhat suspicious you’d kill them all again. However, since Crowbar was near you most times, they begrudgingly went along with it. To some extent.

Fourteen green idiots and a hole in the eight. A hole, after you killed Snowman. A hole you filled in another timeline with Paint. A hole that this time, you took upon yourself to fill. Or something like that. You needed a nudge. You still wore your spades, you still wore all black, but when one day Stitch returned your suit and there was a tiny 8 sewn on the inside, you accepted your number. After a talk with Crowbar, you asked him to put it on the outside next to the spade. Stitch did it immediately, with a knowing sort of smile. You figured it was a good ‘fuck you’ to Snowman, and if it helped the idiots relax already, who cared. Things got better after the Felt all slowly noticed your number. The idiots needed it, and started to take your lead with less intervention from Crowbar. “New Felt Crew Hide-manor” started looking vaguely more building shaped a few days in.

You don’t know which of the idiots named it, but it stuck in a way none of your yelling could get rid of.

You still hung around Crowbar a lot, and he still sucked up to you a bunch, probably desperately afraid you’d get sick of them and put the pins back. But, somewhere along the line, his nice comments and support didn’t seem so forced anymore. You asked him nicely about it one day.

“Hey, where th’ fuck d’ya get off bein’ so nice to the guy that ruined your gang?” You were leaning on the wall, watching him work.

Crowbar paused, setting his hammer to the side. He had been helping with the manor building. You ‘helped’ occasionally too. By standing nearby. Yelling. And doing nothing else.

“You killed us.” He corrected carefully, shrugging. “And yes, at first I wanted to be unpleasant to you. The stupid, dog-obsessed, stab-happy cretin that fucked us all up. …Then you brought ‘em all back.” He shrugged, picking up the hammer again. “…And I technically got a promotion out of it, didn’t I?”

Somewhere along the line, you started kinda _liking_ number seven. You were disgusted when you smiled at the coffee he brought you one day. You were disgusted at how touched you were when he managed to get you a piano. You don’t know how he managed, and he just shrugged when you asked.

You spent way too much time with that thing, dropped into one of the finished areas of the new manor. You played what you knew, melodies that twisted your heart and reminded you of your crew and your city. Tunes that went all the way back to Derse, ones that you felt you were born with. Specifically the ones that you could only bring yourself to play when those fucking clocks told you it was time for it. The manor went up around you, everyone avoiding you while you doted more over the black and white plinker than you did over any dame you had interest in.

Sometimes out of the corner of your eye you could see one of the Felt listening in. Mostly it was Crowbar, but the others seemed moderately interested enough to check out where the music was coming from sometimes. You tried talking to Crowbar about him watching you, but he got all dodgy about it, saying he was just headed to another section of the manor. That dodginess started creeping into normal sentences. Crowbar even tripped over his words sometimes. Things started getting tense in your conversations, more tense than what you usually brought. You didn’t like it.

Then one day, you realized your _liking_ had turned a lot more into something close to _loving_ for number Seven. You couldn’t handle that. That wasn’t what you were about, and you realized you were too far along to cut it off before it developed.

You started avoiding Crowbar. He seemed hurt by this. You pretended not to give a fuck.

-You gave a fuck. You didn’t like that you did. More reason to avoid the issue.

 

The downside to spending all that time alone was you started simmering in your loss again. In your rage for the ex-boss of these goons. You missed your crew. You missed Droog and Boxcars and even Deuce, annoyingly optimistic as he was. You started simmering with some alcohol Biscuits was able to produce and replicate from his oven. (That thing was always full of shit, you wouldn’t be surprised if there was a whole other world in there.) He thought a manor always needed some booze, and you were quick to agree with the moron. For once.

That newfound way of “simmering” led to a few brawls with the leprechauns. Most of them were pretty equal thrashings. You weren’t as dexterous as you used to be, and that gave the goons just the edge they needed to actually beat you sometimes. Or not, as it happened in one case.

 

It was Die. The son of a bitch had never gotten over you not returning his doll, and got the courage to come yell at you about it one day. You almost killed him, knife coming out of you and into him so fast you shocked yourself. Not only because it was almost a long lost skill at that point, but because you kind of regretted it. You saw the cuts getting stitched up immediately, and even in your drunken state, you reminded yourself to thank the old man. You thought this while you were absconding quickly up into the upper, unfinished, sections of the manor. You tore up the maze of stairs, through the construction that never seemed to fucking finish.

You picked your way across the beams and the brown unpainted and unfinished floor to kick your legs over the side and into the open night air. If you tilted back just like this on a night as clear as this, you could cut out the forest and remind yourself of the desert town. Its perpetual darkness and night. Actual people who remembered but chose to forget the war. Stupid detectives and their stupid imagination city. Being able to do whatever you wanted with no repercussions with your allies and friends. You missed it.

You don’t know how long you stayed up there. Wallowing. Pouting maybe, if you were being honest. But you dozed off at some point and when you woke up, you weren’t alone. And your head was rested on the Not Alone entity in the room. Mr. Fucking Seven.

“You up?” He asked softly. He must have felt you tense up, or your breathing change or something. You took a while to answer, gathering yourself enough to not blurt out anything emotional.

“Yeah.”

“Feel better?” He said, just a little sarcastically.

“…Yeah.”

“I won’t tell you what state your fool ass left Die in, but you’re lucky Stitch was around and fixing up his work area.” You don’t like getting reprimanded, and this time was no different.

“I coulda jus’ brought another Die.” You said sourly. Crowbar shoved you a bit for that. You almost fell off of him, having to put out an arm to stop yourself, and shot him a much earned glare. He was already looking down at you, level headed.

“Don’t even joke.”

“Fine.” You crossed your arms and almost defiantly thump your head back against his shoulder. He hesitate, then put an arm on your shoulder after a moment, holding you steady. It’s nice, for a minute. But it doesn’t last. He started clearing his throat, and fidgeting a little. Uh oh. You didn’t move, hoping he would think you fell back asleep.

“…Slick?”

You didn’t answer.

“Why’re you avoiding me?”

You stayed quiet. He sighed.

“Slick? Did I do something? Because I thought we were past this whole Felt vs Crew shin dig, but here you are avoiding me and beating up my gang again-“

“It ain’t that.” You protested.

“You sure? Look, I won’t let you kill all of us off again, we may have gotten close but-“

“Crowbar. It’s not that.”

“-I refuse to let them go, they’re the last of my species, the only family I’ve got left-“ He was starting to sound frantic, and he wasn’t listening to what you were saying. You felt guilty, and before you knew it, you were showing him instead.

You sat up, grabbed his shoulders, and pressed your lips together.

\--

You grin a little into your coffee, suitably woken up by now.

Things had gotten better since then, and you actually got along moderately well with most of the Felt. Crowbar had made you go apologize to Die, and he seemed to get over it scarily fast for almost being murdered by you. You figured it was a common occurrence in this nightmare gang.

Somewhere in the manor you can hear shouting, and the sound of something being knocked over, followed by the telltale sounds of fighting. You figure you should go help Crowbar with that. Placing your coffee cup down on the table, you turn to go get dressed. Something on the table catches your eye.

You pause and give it a look. It’s an envelope, with some illegible scrawl all over it. You pick it up, trying to make out the writing. It’s green, and you think there’s some numbers mixed into the letters, but you honestly don’t have the patience to decode it.  You make out a “-6” at the bottom, and figure that’s about all you need to know. You tear it open, and are surprised to not find another note inside. What you do find just makes things that much more complicated. Your chest tightens with some indescribable emotion.

Overturning the envelope, three small pins drop into your hand. Your lips quirk up a way that could only be described as maniacal.

“Well, that was a fuckin’ mistake.”


End file.
